


All The Cyanide You Drank

by falloutboiruto



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Angst and Humor, Anxiety, Blackmail, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, hijinks and shenanigans, zany schemes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21719476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutboiruto/pseuds/falloutboiruto
Summary: Sumire has just gone back to school after trying and failing to destroy Konoha. She wants to cover her tracks, and does so by trying to blackmail Mitsuki into not outing her as a former wannabe terrorist to the rest of their class. Through a series of unfortunate events and misunderstandings they have to start a fake romantic relationship, and hilarity ensues(?).
Relationships: Kakei Sumire & Mitsuki
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	1. If you marry me, would you bury me?

**Author's Note:**

> yo yo yo i'm back. this time with... this.
> 
> title from mcr's song "to the end"

“Your employer ordered you to kill me? Who do you even work for?” Sumire had asked Mitsuki that one night, standing on the hills looking out over the village she was trying to destroy. The village that she and all of her friends called home, arranging a terrorist attack on Konoha was _crazy_ , she was being crazy rig ~~ht now, she must look and sound and think like an insane person right now, but.~~ It was her father’s dying wish. She knew that. She had to do this.

“Their identity is irrelevant to you, but your corpse will end up on their dissection table all the same,” Mitsuki answered, apparently somehow even crazier than her as he pounced and easily overpowered her.

Sumire fell to the ground with a loud thud, getting the wind completely knocked out of her. Maybe this really was for the best as an early death really was the ~~perfect excuse to not destroy Konoha, she thought~~ , as Mitsuki pulled a dagger to her throat with the most blasé expression on his face like this was what he did every Tuesday evening. For a moment, everything stayed very still. Mitsuki’s eyes that somehow reflected light in the darkness like some kind of wild animal, something _inhuman_ , darted to the side, and he turned his head to look away from her like he was hesitating of all things. And when Sumire looked up and saw that Boruto had come running, effectively interrupting them, it was mostly disappointment that she felt.

Because now, she didn’t have that excuse anymore.

She had to destroy the village. She had to. She had to she had to she had to she had to she had to ~~even though she didn’t want to~~ she had to she had to she had to—

But, all that fell through, somehow, and she at first thought that she changed her mind all because of Boruto. But she realized later that she never wanted to do it in the first place. All along, she had never wanted to do this, but she had almost done it anyway.

How utterly disgusting.

-

She talked to the ANBU investigators. She talked to Shino-sensei. She was released from solitary and was allowed to return to school as nothing had ever happened. The only ones of her classmates that knew were Boruto(sweet as ever) and Mitsuki(incredibly creepy but most likely harmless as she didn’t have the Gozu Tennou tattoo anymore). It was best if it stayed that way.

So, after school that day she asked Mitsuki if he had a minute, and went into a secluded alleyway to have some privacy.

“Do you want a re-match?” Mitsuki said as his placating fake-looking smile dropped and was replaced with a blank, cold stare. “You are currently of no use to my employer, so I think it’ll be rather futile for you to fight me. I mean you no harm.”

“What, no! I just don’t want you running your mouth about what happened that night to the rest of our class.”

“That would be highly illogical of me,” he said. “Seeing as I tried to kill you, a fellow classmate, on the orders of an, to you, unknown outer force. Should the truth about that be revealed, I would have a lot more to lose than you do.” Mitsuki was talking more to her left shoulder than anything else. He was really bad with keeping eye contact, she noticed now.

Sumire drew a deep, shuddering breath. “So, I keep quiet about your assassination attempt and you don’t tell anyone about me being a terrorist?”

Mitsuki’s gaze shifted from her left shoulder to her right, and his eyes narrowed. “Interesting. I thought for sure you’d rat me out to the ANBU and that my days here were over. But, you’re actually going to protect me in a sense. Why? For all you know, I could also be plotting to stage a terrorist attack on the village. As I very clearly stated, all I wanted you dead for was in order for my employer to easier use your Gozu Tennou as a superweapon. Doesn’t that sound suspicious to you? You would’ve been better off reporting me.”

Sumire clenched her fists and tension flooded her shoulders, neck, and jaw. He was just _so—_ “Look, I don’t care about your mind games. I just want to be done with this. Don’t you want to be too? You seem like you want to be able to stay in Konoha, why don’t just accept this offer?”

“I’ve decided that I want to stay now, yes. And as for my 'mind games,' I just think your frankly self-destructive thought process is fascinating, is all,” Mitsuki said, cocking his head to the side and thoughtfully studying her like a worm he was about to dissect with a sharp scalpel in Biology Lab. “But I don’t really care all that much anyway.”

“Why not?”

Mitsuki just kept staring at her and didn’t answer, so Sumire decided to press harder. “You say you want to stay in the village, but you were ready to throw it all away and commit murder on the orders of… whoever your employer is. And now, you’re re-telling me a lot of incriminating details as if to remind me. It’s almost like you want to be caught.”

“Well—“ Mitsuki began. “Should I be caught then it would hardly matter, my employer can replace me in a second. And as for me, well, I’ve never really understood the charm of being out of the proverbial womb anyway. It’s confusing and bright lights hurt. I’m not sure if I’ll get used to it.”

“This conversation is going nowhere. Let’s just agree to keep quiet and ignore each other for a while?”

Mitsuki nodded in agreement and left the alleyway by parkour-jumping up the rooftops. _~~Showoff~~ , _is what she could’ve thought if that hadn’t been a mean thing to think, which it was, so she didn’t think it. ~~Almost.~~

-

The next day in school, Sumire was on her way to homeroom when Cho Cho appeared around the corner and waved at her with a peculiar spark in her eyes.

“Yes?” Sumire asked.

“We have to talk,” Cho Cho smirked, and while that made Sumire’s head spin with paranoia and the walls close in on her and the floor wobble, she followed Cho Cho into the girl’s bathroom.

“Soooo….” Cho Cho drawled. “A little birdie told me that you could be seen talking to Mitsuki in a dark alleyway in town yesterday.”

Sumire’s life was over. She was going to lose all of her friends and go to jail and—

“Were you asking him out?”

Cho Cho’s question hung in the air, and for a few seconds that stretched on for what felt like hours. Sumire could, she _should_ finally come clean and tell Cho Cho what kind of person she really was. But somehow her lips moved on her own and her voice box betrayed her and formed the words:

“Yes! That’s absolutely what happened!” She squeaked. “We’re dating now! Yurp!”

Cho Cho giggled girlishly. “Oooh, tell me more!”

"Uh, there's not much to tell… I have to go do class president things now if you'll excuse me…."

Sumire quickly booked it out of the room and ran towards homeroom. She needed to talk to Mitsuki, _now._ She found him standing in the homeroom classroom corridor, listening to Boruto loudly speak about Shinobi Bout.

“So, I think the Blue Eyes White Haired Ninja is the coolest card for sure,” Boruto said. “But the Dark Ninja Magician Girl the second coolest card. The third coolest card is…”

Mitsuki silently nodded at him with a vacant look in his eyes, clearly not understanding anything about the conversation they were having.

“Hey, uh, Mitsuki?” Sumire said, trying to seem calm but probably coming off slightly frazzled. “Can I speak to you for a minute?”

“Weren’t we ignoring each other? I want to hear about third coolest card in Shinobi Bout.”

“Not anymore! Come on, it’ll only take a minute and class starts in 15…”

Sumire didn’t wait long enough for Mitsuki to have the time to respond with more than a shrug and for Boruto to blink more than once at them both, confused and concerned, until she dragged Mitsuki down the hallway, down another corridor and into the first empty classroom she could find and closed the door shut. Manically she peered out of the windows, looking for possible witnesses. They were none.

“I take it you changed your mind about the re-match?” Mitsuki asked.

“No! Cho Cho saw us! When we talked in the alleyway!” Sumire panted, almost on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Oh?”

“She asked if I was asking you out and I just panicked and said that we’re dating now!”

“ _Oh_.”

“So, you have to pretend that you’re my boyfriend now! If you won’t, I’ll tell everyone about your assassination attempt-“

“Sure,” Mitsuki said, shrugging. “Sounds hilarious.”

Sumire was frozen in her tracks. She was trying to blackmail him like a horrible, awful person, and he just…. said yes to it? _Why?_

“I’m going to guess that you’re asking yourself why I’m agreeing to it?” Mitsuki said.

Sumire nodded, at a loss for words. Mitsuki came closer and she seized up because _what did he want_ , but he just patted her on the shoulder once while making as little eye and hand-to-shoulder contact as possible.

“Urgh, that felt weird. I’m not going to do that again,” Mitsuki muttered. “Anyways, I’m agreeing to be your fake boyfriend because it sounds like it has hilarious comedic potential.” He said this while making the most neutral, maybe even straight-up bored, facial expression possible.

“But you’re not laughing?”

“I think I’m physically incapable of laughing, honestly. Even remembering to do regular breathing is still a bit of a stretch for my diaphragm as of the present day. It hasn’t had much practice. Anyways, shall we?”

_Oh god. What was she doing?_

She took his arm, and they strolled out of the empty Ninja Academy classroom together, and towards homeroom. When they both got back, Boruto and the rest of their class looked very confused.

“Uh, what just happened?” Boruto asked. “Why are you holding hands?”

“We decided to start dating. Just now. It’s very romantic,” Sumire lied as fast as she could.

“I knew it!” Cho Cho screamed from the crowd, but everyone else just looked very confused and possibly very uninterested. Except...

”Wait, really?” Boruto asked. “That’s…. kind of weird? And very sudden? But I’m happy for you, of course!” Backtracking, he waved his hands around in the air erratically and laughed nervously. “Don’t get me wrong! Hue hue hue!”

“Thank you, Boruto. It is weird and sudden indeed,” Mitsuki said sagely. “But it is also very true.” He blinked with both eyes at Sumire. Was that his version of winking?

It was at this point that Sumire decided that Mitsuki was a terrible liar who was going to get their cover blown in less than a minute if this conversation kept going, but luckily enough that was when Shino-sensei arrived to start the lesson. And talking in class was _illegal_. Mitsuki initially went to sit down next to Boruto, but Sumire yanked his hand and led him to sit next to her in her usual seat.

“I can’t write notes if I have to hold your hand all day. Can I let go?” Mitsuki asked.

Sumire heard Cho Cho’s giggle in the background and that did make her nervous, but she could see his point. It looked couple-y enough to just sit next to each other, she supposed.

-

After the class was over that day, Sumire decided that she and Mitsuki were going to walk home together for appearance's sake, and also for her to give him some constructive criticism about his fake boyfriend-act. However, once they were outside the school building, Boruto seemed to want to talk to them, again.

“Are you really dating?” he asked. “But what about your fight?”

“Yes, our dating is 100% true! We just… really _found_ each other when we were fighting to the death!” she said, the last part very quietly.

“Fear is nature’s greatest aphrodisiac,” Mitsuki added. Sumire shot him a side-eye because _ew,_ but quickly schooled her face into total neutrality. They really had to convince Boruto, after all.

Boruto nodded over-enthusiastically like he desperately didn’t understand what was going on at all. “I see!” he said. “That all makes sense.”

"It does make a lot of sense," Mitsuki agreed.

It was definitely best to leave now. Sumire clasped Mitsuki’s hand again and dragged him away in the general direction of her house. “We have… dating matters to attend to. See you around, Boruto!” she yelled out from over her shoulder for good measure. The glimpse of Boruto’s face she got was a picture of complete and utter confusion and possibly also hurt.

“We’re going to go stare at each other,” Mitsuki added, probably with helpful intentions but only making her drag him away faster.

~~She really was an awful person, lying like this.~~

~~-~~

Once Boruto was out of earshot and they coincidentally were in a dark alleyway very alike the one where Sumire had first gotten into this mess, Sumire let go of Mitsuki and crossed her arms defensively.

“I feel like you are mad based on your body language,” Mitsuki said. “Are you?”

“I’m fine- _No_ , I’m not. Mitsuki, your lying could use some work. Boruto is definitely on to us!”

“That’s strange. I lie out of omission all the time. I have had plenty of practice.”

Sumire almost rolled her eyes but stopped herself. She should be constructive. “OK, you’re great at omitting stuff for sure, but your skills in just making stuff up isn’t… great. You try way too hard.”

“I just don’t like the idea of lying to Boruto," Mitsuki said after a pause. “Omitting details is absolutely necessary to keep the situation, our friendship and myself as stable as possible but I have a feeling I shouldn’t lie to him anymore. Even though he did react in a very interesting way just as I thought, it does feel rather wrong.”

“Just Boruto?” she asked. _Wait, what was that thing about him wanting to keep_ himself _stable? Nevermind, it doesn’t matter._

  
“Yes.”

“Well, anyways. Maybe we can practice going on a fake date so you’ll get the hang of it.” Sumire said. “We should share an ice cream together! That’s a dating thing that people do. Uh, I think.”

Sure enough, they went to the nearest ice cream parlor, but as they looked at the menu Mitsuki winced. “Do I really have to? I don’t like eating.”

“Yes, _my dear_!” Sumire said only slightly passive-aggressively and paid for a big ice cream sundae. It looked delicious, and it would make any onlookers convinced about them being on a date.

As they sat down with their frozen feast, an itchy feeling of nervousness caused Sumire’s eye to twitch and drummed her fingers erratically on the ice cream parlor table. What if someone overheard Mitsuki being unenthusiastic about a couple-y activity? They’d see through their scheme in no time!

“I guess I’ll try it then, “ Mitsuki said. Said and done, Mitsuki took one of the spoons embedded in the ice cream sundae and tasted the ice cream. " _Hm_.” He then took the spoon out of his mouth, took another scoop of ice cream and held it very close to his shirt sleeve opening for a second. When the spoon resurfaced, it was magically empty and clean.

“Did you just pour ice cream down your _sleeve_?” Sumire asked incredulously, a millisecond from spontaneously combusting.

“Of course not. I’m feeding it to one of my snakes,” Mitsuki said plainly like that was just a normal thing to do. “You’re the one not eating now. It looks strange if I’m the only one holding a spoon.”

Sumire was at a loss for words, as he, looking back, very often made her. He tilted his head to the left, and then to the right.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. Oh boy, did he have no idea.

Sumire started gobbling down the ice cream as fast as she could in order to not be able to say something mean, unhelpful, _awful_ back. It was tasty for sure so she kept eating through the brain freeze, even though it made her feel wrong—

“You look unhappy,” Mitsuki said. “Should we end this? We could just tell everyone we broke up and not tell anyone about the truth.”

“What do you mean?” she said as innocently as possible as she swallowed down on another mouthful of ice cream. “I’m great!”

Mitsuki’s eyebrows shifted downwards a smidge (which was high-level emoting for him). “It’s… interesting, for sure, that you say that I’m a bad liar considering your own lack of prowess. This scheme is clearly taking a toll on your psyche. I can tell as much.”

“Why do you care about my wellbeing all of a sudden? Last time I checked, you were only an order away from trying to murder me!”

What—No, that had come out way too _mean_ , she shouldn’t have said that, she should never say things like that. Mitsuki, stunned, just blinked in response.

“Sorry—“ Sumire began, clamping her hands over her mouth, but Mitsuki interrupted her.

“It’s fine,” he said. “You’re very stressed and confused and forcing yourself to not acknowledge that. It’s making you feel like a fraud. You fear that if anyone learned about your parentage and your past actions that you did out what I can only assume was brainwashing, you’ll become ostracized.”

“Yeah….”

“I think you should value your peace of mind more. There’s only one of you, after all, so your sanity matters. Either tell everyone about you being behind the Ghost incidents, or don’t. But we are not fake dating anymore. It’s not fun seeing you like this.”

Sumire considered this, quietly. It sounded… reasonable. Maybe she could wait for a while until everything quieted down, and then tell people that she had done it. Or maybe just don’t tell anyone as she had already received her punishment in the form of community service. No-one had gotten hurt _that bad_ , really, maybe this was something that didn’t doom her to be a bad person forevermore.

But.

“Mitsuki… Are you ok with what _you_ did?”

He just smiled at her, this infuriatingly fake smile that made every hair on the back of her neck stand on edge. He said, “No, but I cannot question my employer’s judgment without feeling what I think is called despair, so I don’t. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Shouldn’t you talk to like, an adult about that…?”

Instead of responding Mitsuki just quietly stared intensively at the tablecloth. It didn’t sit well with Sumire at all, but she didn’t know what to do.

“I guess you’re right,” Sumire said, switching the subject. “About me. I’ll sleep on it and decide what I’ll do tomorrow, ok?”

Mitsuki just kind of shrugged, and they parted ways that afternoon.

-

At the beginning of homeroom the next morning, Sumire raised her hand and asked permission to speak in front of the class. She got up in front of everyone and—

“I lied about dating Mitsuki,” Sumire said. “When I was in that alley with him I wasn’t asking him out, I was talking to him about something bad I did. I was the one behind the Ghost Incidents.

“The g-g-g-ghost incidents?” Metal said. “So _you_ were the one that made me go berserk!”

“Yes. I’m very sorry, I was very misguided. I have been sentenced to community service, and I plan to re-integrate into society in time.”

“Uh, _um_ , Miss Kakei,” Shino-sensei said awkwardly. “You don’t have to admit this in front of everyone. The punishment that you got at the time is enough.”

“We forgive you, it’s ok!” Namida squeaked. Most of the class joined in and piped up with similar platitudes.

“Am I the only one who knew this already?” Inojin snarked. “It was super obvious. Mitsuki and Boruto obviously were involved too, did you try to stop her or something?”

Boruto jumped in his seat like he had been zapped by an electric shock. Slowly, he tried to get some words out, but Mitsuki calmly spoke up before that. “Yeah, something like that,” he said. “Boruto did most of the work though.”

“I did? Uh, yeah! I guess?” Boruto said, voice trembling and cracking hilariously. “We just… talked to her like a couple of good friendly friends. No violence involved, hehe!”

“Yes, quite,” Sumire nodded over-enthusiastically. Upon this, Mitsuki did a _thing_ with his face, almost like a flinch, that seemed bad even though she definitely couldn’t tell what exactly what it meant.

“How grand!” Shino-sensei said. “Now, today we’re going to learn about the most fun subject on earth: how to carve your own shuriken out of a piece of wood in an emergency! It’s actually really easy once you know basic geometry and advanced aerodynamics! Turn to page 45….”

Sumire sat down in her seat and got her textbook out of her bag. She flashed both Boruto and Mitsuki a small, secret smile. Boruto sort of returned it (only slightly lopsided), and Mitsuki just stared blankly at her and gave her a thumbs up.

Maybe things really could go back to normal, and this all could be over soon enough. ~~For her, at least.~~ At the end of the lesson, she was just about to leave the classroom, chatting with her friends. She glanced over her shoulder to ensure that the classroom had been left tidy enough, and noticed that Mitsuki was talking to Shino-sensei about something. But she was immediately dragged along by Cho Cho and Sarada, so she didn't spare it much of a thought and forgot about it completely soon enough.


	2. Not a house, but a tomb

“Can I speak to you for a moment, Shino-sensei?” Mitsuki asked as politely as he could muster. Shino-sensei usually didn’t want to talk to him, so perhaps Mitsuki would fare better if he tried to be more… _conventionally_ socially acceptable.

“Did you find an error in my equation again?” Shino-sensei said, most likely already annoyed.

Glancing at the classroom door, Mitsuki saw that everyone else in the class had already left. The coast was as clear as it was going to get.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did, but it's unimportant. I was wondering how bad you think it would be if I had been ordered by my parent to assassinate someone? I'm asking for a friend."

“ _What_?!" Shino-sensei yelped, apparently so startled that swarms of bugs came shooting out of his sleeves, shirt collar, and pant legs. That definitely meant it was pretty bad. "Mitsuki, that is awful! Did your parent really tell you to do something like that?”

“Yes. They also planned on acquiring a superweapon.”

“ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…!”

-

Mitsuki had to wait outside of the teacher’s lounge while Shino-sensei ‘made some calls’, but he could easily overhear Shino-sensei’s phone call home to his parent through the closed door.

“Orochimaru, I know what you did to Mitsuki! You’re never getting away with this… What do you mean with ‘you’ll have to be more specific’?! There’s _more_? Don’t you hang up on me, you… you… _fucker_!”

Hm. Coming clean was surprisingly messy.

-

Next thing Mitsuki knew, he was at the Konohagakure Social Services office. It was for the best, the social worker told him. He wasn’t sure.

-

Anyway, on Sumire’s side of things, she was doing a lot better now that her secret was out in the open. A few days passed and she felt lighter than ever, going to school, hanging out with her friends, but Mitsuki was missing in action. It was a bit weird, so she asked Shino-sensei about it after class(Boruto hadn’t had any useful information to share).

“Ehhhhhh….” Shino-sensei said after a moment of hesitation. “He’s taking a little break from school right now, but I’m sure he’d like it if you visited him.”

He gave Sumire Mitsuki’s home address, and she decided to go there after school. She considered asking Boruto to join her, but her plans fell through as he had bolted out of the school building as soon as class had been dismissed, and she didn’t have time to ask.

Mitsuki’s apartment building almost seemed abandoned, and she double-checked the address several times before she could muster up the courage to knock on his door. The door opened and she heard a voice saying:

“This visit wasn’t in the schedule- _Oh_.” Mitsuki blinked owlishly at her. “It’s you. Why?”

“You haven’t been to school for a couple of days, and as class president, I wanted to check if you were doing ok!” She tried to cram some pep and cheer into her voice but it came out a little bit forced, mostly because Mitsuki didn’t seem very excited to see her.

"It's complicated," he said, stepping backward to invite her in. "I assume you want to come inside? I haven't had a class president visit me before, so I don't really know what you want."

Sumire walked into the hallway and could only describe the apartment around her as small and sterile. “You have nice lighting in your apartment! Lucky!” she said, probably forcing it again.

“I do?”

An awkward pause dragged on, awkwardly. It made Sumire so antsy the only thing tumbling out of her mouth was—

“Hey, do you want to see Nue now? He’s changed a lot!”

“How so?”

Sumire just smiled and summoned her chimera familiar. As soon as Nue appeared out of the smoke, he started aggressively barking at Mitsuki. But seeing as Nue now was the size of a housecat it wasn’t very threatening and mostly just kind of adorable.

“Huh,” Mitsuki said, drawing out the vowel in an almost sarcastic manner. However, the following sentence came across as painfully sincere: "Nue’s so… _small_ now. I would do anything for him, even though he’s so loud and annoying. Why do I feel this way?”

“Sounds like you think he’s cute,” Sumire said as she tried to still Nue’s panicked squeaky growling. “Mitsuki is our friend now, you don’t have to be afraid!” She picked Nue up from the floor into her arms and he immediately went still, started purring and nuzzled her jaw with his tiny, weird furry face.

“Wow,” Mitsuki said softly with eyes so wide it was almost comical. He reached out his hand and let Nue sniff it. “Is this what love feels like? I need to sit down for a while.”

“You seem really enamored with him.”

“Yes. My favorite part of him is his tail because it looks like a snake. Not the same kind of snake as my snakes, but similar enough.”

Mitsuki patted Nue on the head awkwardly for the last time and went to sit down on his nearby bed(the only furniture in his apartment, it seemed), and Sumire followed and sat down next to him. Nue had surprisingly quickly enough taken a liking to Mitsuki and pawed at his feet, demanding attention.

“I can’t pet him anymore, I’m too overwhelmed by emotion,” Mitsuki said. Sumire took the hint, put Nue in her own lap and gave him chin scritches. Cuddling him was much easier when he was this size compared to before (he had always accidentally stepped on her when he had been bigger).

“It’s great that you like him, but I don’t understand why you’re so overwhelmed. Aren’t your snakes kind of like your pets too?” Sumire wondered.

“Eh,” Mitsuki said while doing a wishy-washy-suggestive motion with his hand. “I haven’t thought about it like that before.”

“But you fed one ice cream?”

“I know. It was mostly a last resort thing. You see, while I don’t know my exact age my memories start only a few months ago, so there are a lot of things about myself I haven’t realized yet. My parent never told me that snakes are like pets, but rather tools to get results, so I guess I never thought of it that way until now.”

Sumire squinted at him. “Wait, what? You don’t know how old you are? I assumed you were my age.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. I was created in a lab, came out of the tube looking about the same age as I am now, and I only remember being out for a few months….”

“That’s…” _Weird? Probably shouldn’t say that._ “You’re kind of like a baby in a sense?” _Not much better._

Now it was Mitsuki’s turn to squint confusedly at her. “What’s a baby? Wait, let me guess— it’s the first stage of regular human development, right? The stage when they’re tiny and bald.”

“Mhm.”

 _“In a sense_ , I would be similar to that because I'm experiencing a lot of situations for the first time, but I have been evaluated to be mentally far superior to the average intellect of the age I physically look. The combination is a bit disconcerting and is probably why I make people feel uncomfortable."

“Nooo, you have never made me feel uncomfortable….” Sumire quickly lied— _badly,_ judging by Mitsuki’s raised eyebrows. “Not anymore, at least! Maybe in the beginning when you were trying to kill me and talking about having me dissected….”

“Surely you understand, then.”

“Not really. You are actually extremely harmless now that you’re making your own decisions. You got so overwhelmed by just petting Nue that you needed to sit down! That’s just kind of…. _Adorable_ actually.”

“Adorable?” Mitsuki said blandly, looking up at her. “My parent’s manservant, Suigetsu, also called me that word. It confused me. Does that mean that we’re friends?”

Adorable or not, he was _not_ easy to make conversation with. But it was pretty hilarious.

“Yeah, duh. _Definitely_ ,” she giggled, as Nue joined in and yipped agreeingly. “Nue likes you too.”

“Oh. That’s reassuring. Well, if we’re really friends, I have to tell you something,” Mitsuki said, now with sudden urgency. "The reason I haven't gone to school for a couple of days is that I've been in contact with social services. Or rather, they were in contact with me. The thing is, the person who ordered me to kill you was my parent, and so, they were deemed unfit. They're not my legal guardian anymore. And I don't really know what I want to do now."

Sumire blinked. This was a lot of information at once. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, stunned.

“Don’t be,” Mitsuki shrugged. “It wasn’t like I knew my parent particularly well anyway. If I had loved them, I wouldn’t feel confused about how I feel about them, like I do now. I would just _know_.”

Sumire wrung her hands in her lap as she tried to think of something to say, something nice and comforting. She couldn’t think of a single thing.

“Anyways,” Mitsuki said. “I think I’m going back to school soon. You don’t have to worry.”

“You know…” Sumire said. "When I realized that my father had controlled and brainwashed me, I also felt very confused. I still don't know if I should be mad at him, or feel sad, or forgive him. I think it's a little of all three. What I'm saying that it's normal to feel lost."

“Is it? That’s good,” Mitsuki said. “I think. But as I said, it’s nothing to worry about.”

Sumire, again, couldn’t for the life of her figure out what words she should say to fix it, to make it all better again and make Mitsuki’s problems go away. Nue beat her to it though, as he wandered from her lap to Mitsuki’s.

“Oh,” Mitsuki said. “I like Nue better now when he can do this.”

“You and I both, buddy,” Sumire giggled. "But anyway, if you need a friend, Nue and I are here, ok? Boruto too! And the rest of our class!”

Mitsuki just nodded in response.

-

Mitsuki came back to school the next day and seemed better for it. He still blended into the background, as always, listening to Boruto go on and on and on and on about Ninja Bout. Sumire still micro-managed everyone else endlessly during clean-up and stressed herself out into pieces over people talking during class. Things were very much the same as before, but no more secrets. No more lies.

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

> please give kudos and comments if you enjoyed this! :)


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